


So You Woke Up In Jail

by EarthmanNoEarth



Category: Total Drama (Cartoon)
Genre: Brotp, Friendship, takes place six years after AS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthmanNoEarth/pseuds/EarthmanNoEarth
Summary: After a night of partying at a concert, Heather wakes up in a holding cell at the police station. The person she meets is not the one she expected to see, or in the place she expected them to be.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	So You Woke Up In Jail

Blinking her eyes open, the first thing Heather saw was cell bars. Everything was fuzzy, and her head throbbed with a ferocious intensity. Was this drugs? Had she been drugged? The answer became clear as objects faded into view around her-desks, chairs, and computers all lay beyond the bars. She was in jail. Glancing around, she took note of her surroundings. She was on a cot only a couple feet off the ground, with a bucket placed near her head. There was a toilet and sink with a curtain that could be closed to conceal the rudimentary bathroom. Most noticeable, someone had stuck a gray college sweater over her tank top. As more of the fuzzy shapes clouding her vision disappeared, the distinct outline of a person sitting on the other side of the room became clear. It took a minute, but she managed to muster enough strength to push herself off the cot and into a sitting position on the ground. From there, she lifted herself back up so that she was sitting on the cot. It was time to question the ass off this cop. “Hey,” she called over to the person, “Mind answering some questions, buddy?” She said ‘buddy’ with as much cold harshness as a blizzard. 

The man in the chair swiveled around to face her. Still squinting, Heather couldn’t make out any of his features. “So, what have you been up to, Heather?” 

“How do you know my name?” Heather was starting to wonder if she was actually in a police station. 

“You don’t recognize me?” he walked over to the holding cell, “I suppose it has been, what, six years?”

Still struggling to figure out who exactly she was talking with, Heather put the pieces together when her vision finally focused and she got a clear view of the speaker. Mohawk, piercings, skull shirt? It had to be him. “Duncan?” 

“You know it,” he leaned against the cell bars, “Not quite who you expected, huh?” He looked...sadder to say the least. There were heavy bags beneath his eyes, and didn’t hold himself as strong as before. His clothing and accessories had been toned down, just a long sleeved shirt with a skull on it, jeans, and a single nose piercing. His hair had lost its artificial coloring and returned to its natural black. Most noticeable of all, a nasty looking scar stretched from the top of his eyebrow down to his nose. “It really has been a while,” he seemed to be speaking to himself. Heather scrambled for something to say.

“Where am I?” she settled on, deciding it best to get answers first. 

Duncan grabbed a wheelie chair and pulled it over, taking a seat next to Heather’s cell. He smiled an amused smile, “Funny story-Pops found you drunk out of your mind last night. You must have been leaving the concert and there’s no way you were going to be driving anywhere. He couldn’t figure out where to bring you so he dropped you off here. You must have not had a sweater so someone put that hoodie on you to warm you up.” 

“I guess that explains why I have a headache,” Heather lamented, noting her tendency to end up with brutal hangovers. “I’m guessing you’re out of prison?” 

Duncan frowned at the mention of his jail time, but answered nonetheless, “Yep. Pops got me a job pushing papers here. I’d rather not be working with pigs, but it’s not like I have any chances elsewhere until I get my certificate.” 

“Certificate?” Heather was a bit curious, as she had never known what Duncan planned to do for a living. 

“It’s some online bs,” he could tell what she was wondering, “I just need it to get the mechanic job I want.” They went silent for a few moments before he continued, “So what have you been up to since season five?” 

It was strange talking to Duncan. Both of them were far from the people they were when they first, or even last, met. A lack of need to compete and backstab has killed Heather’s competitive spirit, though her pursuit of fame continued. “Eh, a soap opera here, a guest appearance there. It’s enough to make a living off of.”

“And to get hammered at a concert off of, apparently.” Both chuckled at Duncan’s remark. 

“I just needed somewhere to blow off steam after the breakup and my friend invited me to stay with her for a bit. I figured I’d drive over here for the concert.”

“Friend?” Duncan raised an eyebrow. 

“One-yes I have friends. Two-we’re just friends.” Once again, the conversation lulled. Duncan checked his watch and glanced towards the front door of the station. 

With a shrug, he unlatched the cell door and helped Heather up from the cot. “Feel free to watch something. You can’t leave until the officers get here, and it’ll be a bit before they’re back from breakfast.” He headed back towards a side room, “Let me see if one of them put on a pot of coffee before they left.” Heather grabbed one of the chairs and sat down in front of the tv. After checking the time, she flipped through the channels until she found what she was looking for. One of the episodes of “Twisted Hearts of Toronto” that she had guest starred in was playing, and she loved laughing at how cringy the writing was. As much as she despised the show, seeing “And Featuring-Heather Suoh” flash by on the screen always made her smile a little. 

Duncan emerged from the break room with two cups of coffee. Encountering Heather had been a pleasant surprise, even if he hadn’t been that excited to see her. She was the first Total Drama castmate he had talked to since going to prison. Courtney, Zoey, DJ, and all them had tried visiting him but he always refused to see them. There were far too many bad memories tied to that show. It was simplest to just cut himself off from them. Oddly enough, he wasn’t really bothered by Heather’s presence. It felt like...it felt like closure. Closure he should have gotten years before. But it was closure he didn’t really want. He found Heather watching some trashy show that he vaguely recognized as one his nonna used to adore. “What is that?” he gestured towards the screen as he set the cups down. 

She clicked the info button, bringing up the show title and a brief description. “I play a character in the new season,” she explained, “Not my role of choice but it was a paycheck.” 

A few minutes passed before Duncan, who was distracted by the show, spoke up, “This is...this show is real? Like they actually film it?”

Heather scoffed, “Tell me about it. When he’s not hitting on women half his age, the director’s busy putting crap on paper and selling it like it’s gold.”

“When you put it that way you could be talking about any soap opera.” Both of them got a chuckle out of that. Heather’s face paled when she realized something. 

Quickly switching gears, she scrambled through the small handbag looped around her belt, and pulled out a phone. “Sixty texts,” she placed her hand in her free hand, “Even my mom wants to know where I am all of a sudden.” 

Duncan grabbed the tv remote and turned the volume down, “You gonna tell them you went to jail?” 

Rapidly typing out messages, Heather rolled her eyes, “Definitely not my mom. She threw a big enough fit when she found out I was going into acting instead of a more, what's the word, lucrative career. If she knew I was getting this tipsy she’d strike me dead on the spot.”

He snorted, “Sounds like my pops. He’s never exactly been the most….understanding father. Especially when matters of alcohol are concerned.”

“At least your dad never made you get plastic surgery.”

One could hear a pin drop after she said that. All Duncan could stutter out was, “What the-“. He couldn’t even bring himself to swear. 

A realization swept over Heather. She had convinced herself that it was a normal, albeit uncommon for a parent to do. “I was in ninth, or maybe eighth, grade,” she recollected, “Puberty has hit me like a bus and in the worst ways. Face full of pimples, teeth sticking out every which way, and no, shall we say, assets. My mom wasn’t about to take me out in public like that, so she took me to a dermatologist and dental surgeon for the first too, and when I still wasn’t pretty enough for her tastes she took me to a plastic surgeon to get the least attractive parts of me ‘fixed’. She was always trying to ‘fix’ me.” 

Duncan knew he had to say something, but had no idea what. He and Heather had never been friends. Allies, enemies, or team mates? Yes. Actual, normal friendship? Why would they? But here she was sharing one of her worst childhood memories with him. He figured he’d just return the favor. “When I was eleven I shoplifted for the first time. I was at a music store and there was a new album out by some punk band. It looked cool, but it has the mature content sticker on it so I wasn’t allowed to buy it. I just stuck it in my coat and tried to hurry out. But I tripped, and fell, and….Celine Dion was big at the time. There was a standee of her up and I slammed head first into her stomach. I was grounded for six months, and my dad put me through hell for those months. Constant chores, passive aggressive comments constantly, and the silent treatment when he wasn’t busy making those comments. When I came out of my room after those six months, I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I got caught, if I went to juvie, if he screamed at me. For once I have to thank Chris McLean. If not for Total Drama I don’t think I ever would have gotten out of that funk.” He sighed, “I can’t wait until I can move out of this stupid town.”

Heather had finished updating her friends and family on her whereabouts, and sat stirring her coffee as it slowly went cold, “Remember when the cabins got washed out to that random deserted island? That must have been, what, nine years ago by now?”

Duncan nodded, “When we dressed up as tribal stereotypes and attacked Chris’s trailer? Good times.” He said the last part fondly, it was one of the few memories from the show he still cherished. “The four of us went into that treehouse and shared all our secrets. And for once it felt like we were all actually friends.” 

“We were friends.” 

“Were we?” Duncan’s time began to grow bitter, “Maybe Owen and I were, and maybe Gwen and I were for a bit, but of course nothing good can last. I doubt anyone from that god forsaken show has any interest in talking to me anymore. And I don’t blame them.” His voice was hollow, the subtle kindness of his earlier words gone. 

Heather was speechless, “You selfish prick.” 

“What?” 

“It’s not that nobody wants to see you. It’s that you drove them away because you decided that you didn’t deserve them.” She swiped the remote from Duncan’s hands and switched the show off, “Courtney drove two hours-each way-just because she wanted to see you. You said no every time. How do I know? Because she texted us about it every time she tried. DJ FLEW ACROSS THE COUNTRY for the chance to see his friend and for some reason you told him no. How do I know? Because everyone else was at work so he called me bawling. They were there for you, but you never let them in.” 

Duncan stood up, “I’m getting more coffee.” 

Before he could take even a single step, Heather grabbed his arm and kept him from walking away, “Why did you not talk to them?” 

“Because,” Duncan could feel himself starting to cry. He wasn’t supposed to cry. “Because I couldn’t, okay? What was I supposed to say? ‘Hi! Glad to hear you’re having a successful life while I’m here in prison!’ My whole life I’ve been trying to avoid this impending sense of doom. And when it finally arrived I had no idea why I was trying to avoid it in the first place. I wasted my whole life in juvie and now….now I’m broken. I’m a broken person with a broken life and no future.” 

Duncan couldn’t take it any more. He collapsed into the chair and covered his face, desperate to hide the tears. He wasn’t meant to be seen like this. Heather crouched down to meet his eye level, and placed a hand on his shoulder, “When I was sixteen I was molded into being the most hated tv character into all of Canada. I received so much unbridled hate that I had to move. I could barely handle it. The one person that I could find solace in disappeared for two years and then stabbed me in the back. After reality tv, I had nothing. Every mistake that I’ve ever made will haunt me to my grave and I have to live with that. We’re both broken, Duncan, but we can still piece ourselves back together. Sure our past and our present might be shit, but we still have our future. And I think it’s time you start making changes.” She went into her phone book and found the number she needed. She quickly grabbed a post it note and scrawled the number on it, “Here’s DJ’s number. You should talk to him.” 

With shaky legs, she returned to her feet, “I’m just gonna go ahead and leave. You can tell your dad I organized a jailbreak or whatever.” 

But before she could finish walking through the glass double doors, Duncan stopped her, “Heather,” he called out, “Do you want to go get a drink after I get off work tonight?” “Just as friends,” he tacked on. 

“I’d like that,” she smiled. Life had always sucked for her. From the subject of a distant mother’s coldness, to a reality star, to a washout, to whatever she was now. Very few times in her life had she felt true happiness. This was one of those times.


End file.
